


My Voice, Even With An Accent

by Felle



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M, Non-Canon Injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:41:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22291261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Felle/pseuds/Felle
Summary: It’s always been you. It was always going to be you.After a small injury from the battle at the Storm Spire rapidly becomes more serious, Commander Gren knows that the best thing he can do is resign from his post. He knows that he’ll hate himself for it too, and that General Amaya isn’t going to make it easy.
Relationships: Amaya/Gren (The Dragon Prince)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 55





	My Voice, Even With An Accent

**Author's Note:**

> Finally, a fic conceit that plays _into_ my obsessive description of hand placement.
> 
> I realize that sign languages have a syntax all their own and that translating sign for sign into spoken language would yield something that looks quite different than what's presented here, but in the interest of legibility I've rendered all of the signed dialogue to capture the meaning rather than the literal signs.
> 
> There's some mildly NSFW art in the last quarter or so of the fic, courtesy of [AATKAW](https://twitter.com/aatkaw), so just be aware of who's behind you.

Gren paused halfway down the corridor of the general officers’ wing in the palace, gripping tighter at the letter in his hand. His _remaining_ hand, the prickling pain in his bandaged right wrist reminded him. He rolled his tongue between his teeth and hoped the heat around his eyes would abate as he continued on.

It was the right thing, Gren told himself. Katolis didn’t need a soldier with one hand, not when they were at war and especially not during peacetime. It wasn’t as if he could do his job particularly well either, even if he could learn to swing a sword again. No sense carrying dead weight. His heart seemed to sink and bind up in iron all at once at that thought.

He tugged twice on the string outside General Amaya’s door to shroud and uncover a light on her desk, and after a moment he heard her heavy footsteps approaching. The thought occurred to him to shove the letter under the door and run, but there was nowhere to disappear to in the hallway. He would just have to do this and hate himself for it afterward.

Despite the long hours she had been putting in to coordinate the troop drawdown at the Breach and assisting the refugees from the Sunfire realms while he’d been laid up at the barracks infirmary, General Amaya smiled warmly at seeing him. She wasn’t in her armor for once, but her pale blue duty uniform slashed with four gold stripes on the shoulders. “Commander,” she signed in her shorthand for him, tapping her second finger on the back of the first while holding her hand horizontal. He was glad to see that her palm had healed up nicely. “I’ve missed you around here.”

“I wish I could have returned sooner, General. May I come in?”

Her brow furrowed at having to read his lips when they would normally carry on silent conversations. Gren frowned as her gaze tracked down to his hands—his hand and the bandage in place of the other, rather. Her lips parted in surprise, and then her expression melted into concern. “What happened?”

“That’s why I came to see you.”

Amaya took a step back to let him in, then shut the door behind him while he took one of the chairs in front of her desk. Rather than retreat behind it, Amaya took the other chair and turned it to face his before sinking into it. Her question was plain and direct. “How?”

“I got a cut on my palm during the battle at the spire,” he said, taking care to enunciate so that his lips were legible. He rubbed at the bandages. In his mind the hand was still there, and the way his remaining fingers moved through empty space was singularly disorienting. “By the time we returned to the capital, the rot had already set in under the dressing. The doctors had to remove it.”

Her worry turned to something worse—sorrow, pity. He wasn’t sure. He didn’t want very much to know. The idea of her pitying him made his stomach churn. “I wish you had sent a message to me.”

“You’ve been busy.”

“Not too busy. Not for you.” Gren felt his ears reddening. He knew their relationship wasn’t _really_ that of superior and subordinate, for better or worse. And he liked that, for better or worse. But the idea that she would simply stop what she was doing if he was hurt wasn’t right. She was more important than that. Amaya held one hand out, and he offered her his bandaged forearm. “Does it hurt?” she asked.

“Yes,” Gren said, stuffing the letter under his leg so he could use some simple signs with his off-hand as he spoke. “The doctors give me medicine to sleep. Otherwise I can’t.”

“I’m sorry.” Amaya set his forearm gingerly on his lap. She looked at the letter half-hidden under his leg. “For me?”

He nodded, shifting to try and alleviate the knot in his stomach as he passed it to her. Amaya broke the seal and unfolded it while Gren looked down at his bandages and the slow tap of one of her heels against the floor. How badly he wanted to have somewhere else he needed to be, or to plead illness, or simply melt into an insensate puddle on the ground. Anything to not be acutely aware of the way Amaya’s posture changed as she read. Finally she tapped his knee twice to get his attention. Gren took a long breath and looked up. “What is this?” Amaya asked, her fingers almost jabbing through the motions of her question.

“It’s…my discharge order, General. You need an interpreter with both hands. And you need soldiers who can fight. You’re my direct superior, so I need your approval—”

Amaya slapped the letter down on her desk, shook her head, and crossed her forearms in front of her chest. “No. I don’t accept. Go recover. Come back when you’re ready.”

“General, I can’t fingerspell fast enough with my left hand. I can’t make two-handed signs.” Gren tried to spell out _Standing Battalion_ to prove his point and lost the thread before getting halfway through. “I’d be a liability to you like this.”

“Because you’re disabled?” she asked with an unamused expression. “You think you automatically become a liability?”

“Of course not, ma’am. I know if I did you would slap me.”

She gave him a wry, mirthless smile.

“Maybe I can learn. I probably can. But not in time to be useful to you. You need someone who can interpret at speed for you _now_ ,” Gren said, punching the sign for emphasis. Amaya frowned and balled her hands into fists on her lap. “It was a hard decision. I enjoy working with you. The doctors offered to plead my case and excuse me from duty until I learned to sign one-handed, but I can’t deprive you of your voice for that long. I respect you too much to hold you back.”

He rubbed at his wrist to soothe another flare of pain. “So please, let’s just—”

“ _No_!”

Amaya’s chair tipped over with how suddenly she stood. Gren sank deeper into his seat. She couldn’t quite get her mouth around the word without knowing how it was supposed to sound, but her outburst was perfectly understandable. Her hand clapped over her mouth in surprise, and her cheeks colored in between her fingers. “You heard that?” she asked with her free hand.

“Yes.”

She flushed a deeper red. It broke him a little, seeing her so vulnerable. Seeing those little parts of her she didn’t show to anyone else because she always had to be unbreaking and unyielding as far as the world was concerned. How difficult was she going to make this for him? Gren was on the verge of withdrawing his resignation and spending every waking moment figuring out how to do his job with only half the necessary tools…but every day spent doing that was another day he wasn’t of any use to her. And he couldn’t countenance that.

“I was making a list of possible replacements. It’s taking longer because I had to find another scribe—”

“No,” Amaya signed, almost crushing her thumb under her first two fingers when they clamped down. Her tongue pressed into the inside of her cheek. “No replacements. You. You’re my voice. It’s always been you. It was always going to be you. Even with—”

She drummed her fingers in the air as she searched for the right word, then spelled out, “An accent. Don’t talk about resigning anymore. I don’t want to hear it.” She grinned a little at her joke.

“Amaya.”

Her brow quirked at him signing her name. “Please, don’t keep me around because you feel obligated. Deciding to do this was hard enough.”

“Why do you want to leave so badly?”

“Because I don’t want to be useless to someone I love!”

The ground underneath him seemed to lurch. Gren winced and stilled his hand to silence himself, then hid his face behind it. Of course, he’d been speaking as well, which felt more like a death sentence than anything. He squeezed his eyes shut in the hope that he might disappear if he wished hard enough. There were elves in Katolis now, maybe they had some kind of magic for that. As it was, his face and ears were burning, so badly he thought he might catch fire.

It was terribly rude and possibly insubordination to keep his eyes shut when Amaya tapped his shoulder to get his attention. Gren really didn’t care. Maybe she would just toss him out on his tail. That sounded preferable to whatever was coming. He shook his head furiously, then felt Amaya tugging his hand away from over his still-shut eyes. Rather than tap at him again, she brought her first finger over his palm to spell on his skin. _Look at me. Please._

Without a convenient lightning bolt crashing through the ceiling to strike him dead, Gren opened his eyes, trying to ignore the way his heart was pounding. “You love me?” Amaya asked, still standing over him. Watching her sign _love_ made his heart clench. She wasn’t angry. There were even the traces of a smile on her lips. That only made it worse. “The way that seems?”

“Yes,” Gren signed. He wondered if his face was the same color as his hair. It certainly felt like it was. “The way that seems.”

Amaya pushed some of her hair back and sighed. She took the quill from her desk and scrawled her signature on his papers, then folded them up again. “There. Discharged. I’m not your commanding officer anymore.”

Seeing her put it so plainly made a lump form in Gren’s throat. He’d never been anything other than a soldier, never wanted to be anything else, and now…he nodded. His body felt like lead as he stood and wiped his eyes dry. “Thank you for everything, General.”

“Sit down, Gren.”

He did so, unable to shake his training, then started when Amaya clambered into his lap. It was a tight fit, she was bulky even without her armor, but her weight pressed comfortingly on his thighs as she stroked at his hair and trailed down to his cheek. Gren opened his mouth to say something, but she tapped one finger on his lips to silence him. Amaya pressed her hand over his heart, then lowered her second and third finger to sign _love_ against his chest. Gren wrapped one arm over the small of her back to steady her. “Oh.”

“You’re not useless. Not to me. Because I love you, too.” Her hands shook as she signed, and her breath raced out in sharp little puffs. Was she—laughing? Gren couldn’t tell, he was too distracted by being able to breathe again. “I’m not your superior now, so I can do this.”

Amaya cupped his face in her hands and gently kissed him, her lips almost ghosting over his. Gren leaned into her and tilted his head to let her get closer. All the heat in his face flared so hot he thought he might burst before it rushed down, pooling in his stomach, creeping through his body and concentrating where Amaya’s legs pressed into him. Her hands trailed away from his cheeks and roamed everywhere she could reach, his nape and shoulders and chest, as she deepened her kiss and flitted her tongue at him. A little moaning sound trembled through his lips and made Gren tighten his hold on her. She was so solid under his arms, shifting against him to try and get even closer. A prick of heat at the corner of his eye was his only warning before a tear rolled down between them.

She leaned back and felt at the wetness on her cheek. “Am I hurting you?” Amaya asked, looking down to see if she was pinning him anywhere. Gren reluctantly took his hand from her back to reply.

“No, happy.” He pressed a kiss to her throat and repeated it aloud. “Just happy.”

Amaya shivered in response to the vibrations from his voice and rocked her hips into his lap. Gren planted his hand on her back again, then slid it down to the swell of her rear to pull her in against him, but she stood instead and hurriedly tapped his leg. “Come to my room?”

“Yes, ma’am…”

“I’m not your superior any longer. Use my name.”

Gren got to his feet and quickly kissed her once more. “Amaya.”

His heart was beating out of his chest as Amaya took his hand and led him out of the office, measuring their steps so it didn’t look like they were rushing. Gren watched the back of her neck redden to a sweet, pale scarlet, unnoticed by the other officers going to and fro. She let go of his hand when they passed another few soldiers, and Gren had to resist the urge to take hers again. What were they going to do? He was retired now, he could propose right then and there without anyone breaking a single rule. Still, he rubbed at his wrist to give himself something to do until they were in an empty section of corridor again.

They passed through the main section of the castle on their way to the apartments, away from all the soldiers who learned to sign as a matter of course. Even so, Gren blushed furiously when Amaya turned around to face him while walking backward. “I’m going to ride you like a warhorse,” she signed in front of a group of scribes. Gren almost tripped on the edge of a carpet lining the middle of the hall. “Until you can’t feel your legs.”

“Amaya…”

“See? You signed that quickly. You’re already learning. Be good and keep signing and I’ll use my mouth.”

Her grin flashed a hint of teeth, and she turned around before he had the chance to cobble together a response. How _could_ he respond? Well. Quite a few ideas crossed his mind, none he could sign without his face turning even redder. He must have looked like a tomato by now. All he could do was pick up his pace and follow a little closer. Gren tugged at the waistband of his trousers as inconspicuously as he could to try and make his arousal less obvious.

Amaya’s rarely-used quarters in the royal apartments were behind the closest set of doors to the entrance, but they both still sped up once they were alone until they were almost running. Gren had barely gotten over the threshold when Amaya grabbed him from behind and playfully bumped her hips into his rear, wrapping her arms around his waist and squeezing as she did. A soft, warm kiss landed on the back of his neck. He sighed, shuddering, and watched as she took her hands from his stomach to sign. “I worried when you were assigned to me.”

“Why?” Gren asked, drawing his hand out to his side rather than forward so she could see his question.

“Too nice. Too cute. So cute.” Her teeth grazed lightly over his neck as her signs grew more perfunctory. “Didn’t think I could get any work done.”

One arm left his side so Amaya could close and bolt the door behind her, leaving Gren free to turn around and press up to her. Despite his adjustments, Amaya started at feeling his cock against her, lips parting in surprise. “I thought the same thing.”

He walked backward at her direction to the foot of her bed, kissing her again and again, until she planted a hand on his chest and pushed him down so she could pull off her uniform. “Wait,” Gren signed, and her fingers paused at the button near her shoulder. “May I?”

Amaya’s lower lip rolled between her teeth as her hands came away from her tunic. “You may.”

Gren had to move his fingers carefully to undo the button one-handed, but he managed. The front flap it was holding up fell away without resistance, exposing the next clasp he hand to remove. Amaya hooked two fingers into his waistband as he worked, tugging him half a step closer as the upper half of her tunic fell open. She winced when he saw some of the faded scars crossing her collarbone, but Gren dipped down and dotted kisses along them. “How was _I_ supposed to get any work done at your side,” he said, making sure to keep his lips on her skin so the vibrations would transfer. A contented shiver answered him.

The rest of the clasps came undone quickly, and Amaya put her arms back so he could slide her tunic from her shoulders. She tugged her undershirt out of her waistband and let him pull that over her head as well. At first Amaya kept her arms crossed over her chest, struck with a self-conscious blush, then slowly relaxed as Gren pushed some tousled hair out of her face. She may as well have been carved from stone, wrapped in cords of broad, powerful muscle as she was. Twin lines slanted down toward one another beneath her stomach, disappearing under the waistband of her trousers. “Beautiful,” Gren signed.

“Liar. See the scars?” Amaya asked. She rubbed the back of her neck, making the muscles in her arm and shoulder flex.

“I’d never lie to you.”

He took her hand in his and kissed the backs of her fingers, idly humming so she could feel his voice. Amaya tapped beneath Gren’s chin to make him look up. “Your turn.”

It took her much less time to do away with his tunic and undershirt, but Amaya stopped at that point, fighting back a smile as she tapped all over his torso. “What is it?” Gren asked. Now it was his turn to be self-conscious. He hadn’t been able to keep up with his training in the infirmary, but he thought his chest and stomach were still acceptably firm.

“Freckles. All over you.” Oh, that was all. He sighed in relief. Amaya leaned down to kiss at a cluster of them in the middle of his chest, then changed course at the last second and closed her teeth around one nipple. Gren hissed from the sudden sharpness, then again from the feeling of her tongue sliding over it. She didn’t let up until she’d given the other the same treatment and worked his breathing to a quick pant. “Do you have them on your cock, too?”

“You can find out if you want,” Gren signed, then wondered if he’d let himself get carried away when she raised one eyebrow. He was on the verge of apologizing when Amaya yanked his belt from its loops and sank to her knees to pull his trousers and underclothes down. One of her hands settled on his thigh while the other slowly wrapped around his shaft, trying one long, lazy stroke. “O-oh…”

Amaya prompted him to sit on the bed, allowing her to shuffle in between his legs to get closer. Her thumb slid up to the top of his shaft while her lips grew closer, until he could feel her breath, slow and steady. “Yep, freckles. Now ask,” she signed with her free hand. “Ask for what you want. Tell me.”

She moved so gently and lightly that the pleasure was starting to feel torturous. Gren’s fingers were shaking as he tried to move them. “Use your mouth…please.”

“Tap my head when you’re close.”

He nodded, and Amaya dipped down to focus, letting her tongue flit out from between her lips to run over the head of his cock. Gren let out another hiss and planted his hand on the bedsheets to steady himself. All he could do was watch her head move from side to side as she explored, dipping down further each time until she’d taken the head in her mouth. Her tongue worked diligently over him until a line of saliva dripped down past her lips, mingled with arousal, while the little sounds she made vibrated across his skin. “I love you, I love you so much,” Gren said, unwilling to distract her to sign it but unable to keep it in any longer. “If I was a noble like you I would have asked for your hand a long time ago…”

Amaya let go of his cock to sink down again and wrapped her arms around his waist, still humming. The feeling made him twitch, and he had to fight not to jerk his hips up to the source. A heavy, blissful pressure tightened up by slow degrees at the base of his cock, making his muscles draw in when she took him all the way, brushing her nose against the patch of hair between his legs. She tossed her head back, releasing him with a _pop_ , and took her hands from his back. One wrapped around his cock again and stroked his arousal mixed with her spit over his shaft while the other asked, “Were you talking? I felt the vibrations.”

Gren blushed all the way down to his chest, nodded, and repeated everything he’d said. Amaya rested her cheek against his thigh and smiled. “You become very romantic when I’m doing this.”

“You could stop right now and I’d still want to marry you!” he signed indignantly.

She raised an eyebrow and took her hand from his cock. The loss of any stimulation so suddenly burned, making Gren grimace and cant his hips as Amaya looked up at him with a smile. “Go on, ask me. Ask me to marry you. But don’t make such a cute face, it makes me want to bully you.”

“Amaya, would—”

His sign fell apart when she brought her hand back and closed it over his balls, moving her fingers here and there to vary the pressure. “Would you…”

“Come on, you’ve signed under a hail of arrows, you can do it while I’m touching you.”

“Amayawouldyoumarryme?” Gren asked, moving his hand so fast that she couldn’t have understood. She relaxed her grip and allowed him some space to think, to do this the way he’d rehearsed countless times in front of a mirror. “Amaya…would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

Her ears reddened, and she turned her head down for a moment so that he couldn’t see her face. “Ask me after,” she signed, and gripped the base of his shaft to tap the underside against her tongue. “You would agree to go fight a dragon right now if I asked.”

Gren nodded shakily. She wasn’t _wrong_ , but he would have done that for her even if they’d had all of their clothes on. “Do you want to come?” Amaya asked as she stroked him again, achingly slow.

“Yes…”

“Of course you do.”

She stood up and pushed Gren onto his back before crawling over him, straddling his collarbone and forcing her to look straight down at him. A warm, wet line of arousal smeared on his chest. She was sweating, Gren saw. Her skin was slick with it. He ran his hand up one thigh to the hard tuck of her waist, so preoccupied with the texture that she had to touch his cheek to get his attention. “I can’t hear it when you wag your tongue, show me how it feels instead,” Amaya signed, and shifted forward until she was sitting on his face.

Well, he wasn’t going to make her ask twice. Gren prompted her to ease down a bit more and felt her fingers run into his hair. He flattened his tongue and wound it in small circles against her sex until her legs squeezed at him in response. Now it was his turn to tease a little. He brought his hand around her hip and through the hair between her legs to press his first two fingers on either side of her clit, until he could swirl the tip of his tongue around it. Amaya sighed and drew in a shaky breath. “Good boy,” she signed, hunching forward slightly. “Very good…”

He had to change up his pattern every now and then to keep her from getting too close, closing his lips or pressing his fingers around her clit with only the slightest motion to let her shift and frown in frustration. Despite her protests, her arousal still smeared across his lips. “ _Gren_ ,” she said aloud, then covered her mouth in embarrassment. Gren brought his hand up to her wrist and gently tugged it away. “I’m sorry…it sounds strange, doesn’t it?”

“I like it,” he signed.

Amaya covered her reddening face, and when she refused his attempts to ease her hands away Gren decided to find another way to soothe her embarrassment. He shifted down and ran his tongue along her sex as he went until he hit upon the source of her arousal, where he pushed lightly and felt her yield to let him in. The faint hits of salt and bitterness became much stronger as he went deeper, until Amaya was pressing in on him from all sides and her hand fastened in his hair again. A frantic, pleased sound cracked out of her chest when Gren flattened his tongue against her clit again, and rather than let him continue to tease her Amaya held his head in place and ground her hips back and forth against his mouth. It felt rather like he was being used.

Gren couldn’t say he didn’t enjoy it.

She came with a long, breathy sigh, throwing her head back and shaking around him. Arousal ran in slow beads down his chin and lips. Gren lapped it up as best he could, but his tongue was already overtaxed and in need of a break. The hand in his hair slowly loosened before Amaya listed and fell onto the bed beside him, breathing heavily and sprawling out after everything had been drawn so tight. She looked at him with glassy, half-lidded eyes, then at the empty space next to her. Gren shifted over to her side as he worked a kink out of his jaw. Amaya pursed her lips. “So messy,” she signed, and tapped one finger to the arousal on his lips. Gren raised an eyebrow—that wasn’t exactly _his_ fault. Amaya kissed him once. “That’s all right. I like the way you look with my come on your face. Sit up.”

Gren watched her climb out of bed and walk, a little shakily, to a washbasin in the corner of the room. She dipped a cloth in the water and brought it back over, sitting in front of him and carefully wiping his face clean. “Stay still,” she signed, and pulled him a little closer. Her legs rested atop his, allowing her to press right up to him until the head of his cock pushed against her stomach. Amaya finished cleaning him off and tossed the cloth toward the washbasin, but she didn’t seem too bothered when it landed a bit short. Rather than retrieve it, she turned back to Gren and chewed her lip. Seeing her so nervous was a rare treat. “I…I’m going to make love to you now.”

He had only just nodded before Amaya climbed into his lap and reached down to grab his cock. Gren clutched her hip as she slid him against her sex. Payback for his teasing, surely. He didn’t mind all that much. When she felt he’d had enough, her legs tensed, she leaned forward, and then she sank down on him, enveloping him in a brilliant wet heat. Amaya took him slowly, discomfort flashing on her face. Gren tapped her hip until she opened her eyes. “Stop if it hurts, all right?”

“If you were hurting me, you’d know. This is just…a little stretch,” she signed, and wrapped her arms around his shoulders as she worked down further, until she had taken him to the hilt. Amaya buried her face in the crook of his neck, moaning softly into his skin as she paused to acclimate to him. Gren tried to think of anything and everything that would help him last a bit longer, since as it was his arousal was still spiked from her earlier attentions. Every thought invariably led back to her, though. As it always did. He hugged her around the waist and let his hand creep down to squeeze her rear, to which she bit lightly at his neck and rocked her hips forward. One of her hands signed _love_ on his back, behind his heart, and he mirrored the gesture on her skin.

When she did start moving, pushing her legs together to pick herself up and then letting gravity take her back down, Gren felt his muscles draw taut and warm despite his efforts to the contrary. He kissed at the soft space beneath Amaya’s ear and hummed softly to try and take his mind off the pleasure mounting beneath his cock. She shivered in response and drew her hands together on his back to sign _more_. Gren hummed a tuneless melody against her skin, trying to vary his pressure and volume, until he couldn’t distract himself any longer. He tapped quickly at her back. Rather than ask him to clarify, Amaya sped up, almost rutting on him, grinding her hips back and forth until he gasped against her throat and snapped upwards toward her as he came. An electric jolt ran up his spine and through his body, tingling and making his muscles twitch. Gren sank against Amaya, relishing the feeling of her hand on his nape as he pushed against her to satisfy some animal need, until she eased him back onto the bed once more and slowly dismounted him. She laid prone at his side and canted her hips a few times. “Ask me now,” she signed. “Now that I’m not on you.”

Gren turned toward her. A few locks of hair were stuck at odd angles from the sheen of sweat at her hairline, and her face still had an uneven, reddish flush to it that spread down her neck and to some of the scars on her collarbone. He smiled. “Will you marry me, Amaya?”

“Of course I will. It’s always been you. It was always going to be you.”

The shuffled closer until they were cuddled together, until they couldn’t see anything the other might have been signing. It didn’t seem to matter much, in that moment.


End file.
